


there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so

by comfortinglies



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Confessions, F/M, Four Months Later, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Karen's POV, Non-Graphic Violence, Post-Season 2, Spoilers Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 13:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6331813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comfortinglies/pseuds/comfortinglies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Confession tastes like gunpowder on her lips. [...]<br/>
She expects to break at some point, to crumble under the weight of relief or guilt, or both at the same time. She expects at least her voice to crack, to give her away, but none of it happens. In the end, she just feels hollow – standing by the window a few feet away from Frank, she needs a moment to let that feeling sink in. It's as if the giant burden she just freed herself from revealed an equally giant hole underneath, and all she can do right now is staring into its bottomless depth, frozen on the spot.<br/>
(Kastle | Karen's POV, set after season two.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so

**Author's Note:**

> It took me less than three days (the time I needed to watch the whole S2) to willingly decide to sell my soul to Kastle. Seriously, that's it: I don't have much more to say. It just happened, and the thing you're going to read was supposed to be a flashfic at most, but of course I'm physically unable to restrain myself once I begin to write something, so... here you go. Set a few months after season two, this is about Karen coming clean to Frank about a certain secret (something that totally needs to happen in season three, by the way).  
>  I apologize in advance for any mistakes - English is not my first language, so feel free to point them out!  
>  EDIT 24/03: I changed the title to a quote from Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'. Enjoy ♥

 

It happens on a particularly cold April day, one the stubborn ghost of the last winter seems determined to steal from an already fragile spring; it happens at night, actually, because everything in Hell's Kitchen happens at night, and in the daylight all its corners and alleys look almost harmless; it happens as Matt and Foggy, on the other side of the city, are probably refining the opening statement for what is going to be the biggest case of their entire careers – and considering who the defendant is, of the last seventy years in general; it happens when her eyes start prickling from exhaustion in front of her laptop, and she realizes that feeling is nothing compared to the restless itch inside her chest she's been experiencing for months.

It happens in her apartment, with the high volume of some neighbor's television buzzing in the background about the imminent start of James Barnes's trial. It happens with Frank Castle standing by the rain-streaked window of her living room, an old bottle of rum absently passed between the two of them.

"You were right."

With a single move, she slams the laptop shut and stands up. Her fingers tremble briefly before closing around the glass on the table and its remaining content. She squints once, twice, as the rum burns down her throat – not fiery enough to cover the aftertaste of the words she just pronounced, though.

"'bout what?"

Frank's rasp of a voice sounds even lower than usual. Perhaps it's an effect of the alcohol: on Karen, though, not on him, since she's pretty sure it doesn't affect him the same way it affects most people, herself included. As if his stomach is made of steel, and maybe his skin and bones as well. As if he's not human.

Which he is, by the way. He's very much human, and that's one of the many reasons Karen decides, driven by instinct as much as by weariness, to go all the way with it. To tell him the truth she's been keeping locked inside for about a year now.

"About me using a gun." Suddenly she's back in that dimly lighted room, James Wesley sit in front of her and a pistol resting on the table between them. If she focuses, she can still recall the shrilling sound of his ringtone. "Remember what you said to me in that diner, about it not being my first time? Well, you were right. It wasn't."

Frank stays silent. His eyes are the same dark shade of the furious sky outside, yet the stillness in his posture makes Karen think it's safe to go on. So she does.

Confession tastes like gunpowder on her lips.

She tells him everything – from all the shit brought to light by researching Fisk to being kidnapped; from Wesley's threats and attempts to blackmail her to that life-changing moment of distraction; from the first shot, taken with shaky hands, to the sudden burst of fear and adrenaline that had actually made her unload the weapon on him. Six more shots: she can still see the bloody pattern on Wesley's white shirt as if not a single moment has passed.

She expects to break at some point, to crumble under the weight of relief or guilt, or both at the same time. She expects at least her voice to crack, to give her away, but none of it happens. In the end, she just feels hollow – standing by the window a few feet away from Frank, she needs a moment to let that feeling sink in. It's as if the giant burden she just freed herself from revealed an equally giant hole underneath, and all she can do right now is staring into its bottomless depth, frozen on the spot.

"Why?", Frank asks at last, voice muffled both by that annoying neighbor's television and the rain smacking against the window. And it could be a tricky question, really, except that it's not: because Karen has come to know him well enough to grasp the unsaid, so she knows what he means. It's not a _why did you do that?_ , 'cause he's the last person on Earth who could and would judge her for killing someone who _objectively_ deserved punishment; it's not even a _why now?_ , although she has an answer for that question too: _because the whole world seems to have an opinion about guilt these days, but how can I talk about it myself? How can I expect to write a goddamn article on that goddamn trial if I refuse to acknowledge my own guilt first?_

It's not even that. It is, ultimately, a _why, of all people, me?_ – and as soon as realization hits her, Karen finds herself unable to answer. Not because she doesn't know; but because she does, and every reason coming up to her mind is just a tiny piece of a puzzle she doesn't know how to sum up.

 _Because I told you you were dead to me, but I never meant it, and I stopped pretending the moment I saw you on that roof. Because I felt relief when you stopped pretending too, and because I think neither of us ever believed in any of those_ stay away from me _s. Because you never lied to me, but I did: by omission, yes, but I did it anyway. Because it's true, you can look into a person's soul, and that makes you more human than you think you are. Because Matt and Foggy managed to get their shit together, but I can't seem to do the same with any of them – and even if I could, I don't think they would be my first choice. Because I needed to be honest, and you deserve honesty more than anyone else._

"Because I wanted to know it from you" she breathes out, words flowing from her mouth before she can even properly think them.

"Know what?"

Outside, the rain is dying down.

"What it feels like. What it _tastes_ like" she replies, and that's when it happens – her voice shatters, eventually giving away a glimpse of the inner turmoil she managed to keep at bay until now. "When you choose to do it. When you pull the trigger."

 _When you know it's the right thing to do_ , she considers adding, but she doesn't – because that would mean entering treacherous waters, and this is not about ethics or moral codes. It is about coming clean to someone who knows blood and death more than anyone else she's ever met; someone who's capable of murdering an entire sector of a prison as much as of putting a specific tape in her car just to let her know she wasn't alone; someone who shouldn't even be here right now, or anywhere but in jail, and yet seems to belong to this place in a way she's unable to explain. Frank Castle – with his crooked nose, unsettling gaze and at least three new bruises on his face every time he shows up – belongs here, to this spot by the window in her small living room, an empty glass in his left hand and eyes restlessly scanning her face.

Karen feels safe. It dawns on her all of a sudden, to the point of being almost intoxicating; and yet, at this exact time of her life, she would gladly let such a feeling suffocate her.

"I think you know it already", he says, voice grown thicker with some sort of emotion she's equally afraid and yearning to name. She swallows. _Gunpowder_ , is all she can think, and then, madly, _would it go away if I let him kiss me? Or would it stay forever?_

The distance between them, just a couple of feet, suddenly seems insurmountable to Karen. And it hurts in a way she didn't even think possible.

"You didn't need to tell me, y'know."

Then, as if he just read her mind (it wouldn't be surprising to discover he actually can, after all), he moves towards her; one step suffices to cover the space dividing them, and now here he is, eyes fixed on hers as Karen's mind buzzes and screams _no, I wanted to, I needed to, and I'd do it again 'cause lately you seem to be the only one who really gets it, who really gets me–_

"But I'm glad you did" he finishes, and that almost tears Karen apart – because his tone is raw, with no trace of tenderness at all, yet the way he lifts a hand to her face and carefully takes a strand of her hair between his fingers tells a different story. One of gratitude, in equal parts brutal and desperate. When was the last time Frank Castle proclaimed himself glad about something? She can't remember, 'cause there's never been a first, either. Yet now here he is, a look on his face that realistically speaking will never know the lines left by sheer happiness again – but he's being sincere, as authentic as a wound bleeding before her eyes. In his own way, scarred eyebrows and swollen bruises and all, he's actually glad right now.

Karen inhales briefly, hoping both to calm her racing pulse down and to keep him this close. Frank isn't even stroking her hair: he's just keeping the same lock between his thumb and index finger, barely rubbing them. With his hand resting so close to her face, Karen is able to catch the faint smell of his skin – oddly enough, she finds out it has nothing to do with gunpowder, or blood, or sweat. It's more of an earthy scent, something that reminds her of dust and rain. Of life, as fleeting and fierce as only life can be.

It's good. Maybe he's not going to kiss her tonight, or tomorrow, or anytime soon, the same way she's not going to brush her lips on the fading cut on his cheekbone – but that's alright. At least, she realizes, looking into the gaping hole left in her soul seems already less scary than before.

Maybe it's not enough, but it's a start.

“I'd already figured it out myself, by the way.”

This time his voice is clear to her ears, no other sound to smother it. The storm outside has turned to nothing more than a drizzle. The half-deaf neighbor probably went to sleep.

 _Of course._ The thought, the predictability of it, strikes her in all its obviousness. _Of course you did. It'd be easier for me to keep a secret from myself than from you._ Of course he knew.

Her heart flutters in her chest, so lightweight it's almost painful.

“Go back to your writing”, he adds in a whisper.

Still dazed, Karen nods – just to find herself echoing, a moment after, one of the first conversations they had. “Stay. Please.”

It seems like only yesterday, and simultaneously a lifetime ago. She can't help wondering if he remembers, and the moment after she calls herself stupid for even doubting that, because _of course_ he does – her guts tell her so. The fact he just proved once again how easily he can read her tells her so.

Frank doesn't say anything. And Karen still doesn't know the reason behind all of it; she doesn't know what she was looking for – redemption? Closure? Some sort of twisted approval? – nor what she expected him to offer her; but when he tucks that strand of hair behind her ear, fingers purposefully brushing her cheek, she gets it: this is the closest thing to absolution she could ever hope for.

And it's good, and for now it's more than enough.

 


End file.
